Erin McCarthy - Believe

“Okay,” he said, but he looked reluctant. He did insist on carrying my tray back to the table after we ordered. I got a bowl of soup and he got a burrito the size of my head.

When we sat back down, the group of girls at the table next to us stared boldly. I knew one of them from my literature class, and the others I had seen at parties, but I didn’t know their names. I smiled tightly at them when we made eye contact, but they didn’t look away. I could hear them whispering.

“OMG, who is that chick Robin with? Is he like her bodyguard or something?”

I knew that Phoenix heard them, too, because his shoulders were rigid, but otherwise he showed no change in emotion. He was better, a thousand times better, at hiding his emotion than I was. I knew I probably looked uncomfortable. But I just sat there and spread out my napkin in my lap.

“Bodyguard? She doesn’t need a bodyguard, she needs a stylist. She looks like hell this year. WTF happened to her?”

I paused with my spoon halfway to my mouth.

“I heard she has cancer, that’s why. I mean, look at her. I’m surprised she’s even here for classes.”

“I heard she spent the summer at rehab. Drugs.”

“No, it was for sex addiction.”

Phoenix made a sound of disgust and he leaned over and touched one of the girls’ arms. She jumped and looked at him like he was a zombie out for her flesh.

“I’m sorry to interrupt your gossip session,” he said. “But we can hear every word you’re saying and it’s rude. In case you didn’t realize that.”

Their mouths all dropped open. Two had the decency to look shamefaced, but the third just sneered. “Sorry,” she said, and it was about as insincere as you can get. “But now you can clear up the mystery for us. Who are you? I’m Frannie.”

“Go fuck yourself, Frannie,” he said in a very polite voice, a tight smile on his face. Then he picked up my tray and his and moved us three tables over.

They had no response, clearly as shocked as I was.

I followed him, their gasps of indignation washing over me, not sure how I felt. I was embarrassed that people were talking about me, that my appearance was so noticeably different it was grounds for gossip. But at the same time, I didn’t really give a shit what they thought of me. They weren’t my friends and never would be. They were bored girls with no real worries in their lives. I had been one of them. But now I knew I had no business judging anyone else.

I also wasn’t sure how I felt about Phoenix feeling like he had to defend me.

“You shouldn’t have to listen to that shit,” Phoenix said, his jaw tense, his nostrils flaring. He moved back and forth in front of the table for a second before he yanked the chair out and sat down. I could see him pulling himself in, controlling his emotions and his body.

“It’s okay,” I told him. “It doesn’t matter, and they are right, you know. I do look like hell. But I’m okay with it.” I was. If it truly bothered me, I would put on makeup. But I couldn’t work up the energy to worry about it. It was nice not to have to reapply lipstick every hour.

“You do not.” Phoenix glanced away for a second, and when he looked back at me, my breath caught in my throat. He looked at me like I was important, special. “You’re beautiful, you know.”

To him, I was. I could see that and it had more impact than any bitchy comments from girls I didn’t know. “Thank you,” I whispered.

“Are they right, in any way?” he asked, and I realized his face was pale. “Do you have cancer?”

Oh, God. I shook my head rapidly, feeling guilty all over again. “No! No, of course not. I’m not sick at all. And no, I didn’t go to rehab either, though I did stop drinking because I had one of those nights where I blacked out and it scared the shit out of me.” That was as close to the truth as I could get, but I wanted him to understand that he shouldn’t feel sorry for me. I didn’t deserve his pity or sympathy.

He gave a sigh, one that seemed like relief to me, and he nodded. “I’m glad to hear it. For a second I thought, what if they’re right?” He looked like he was going to say something else, but he didn’t. He just shook his head. “Anyway. Eat your soup.”

I took a spoonful, but my appetite was gone. I couldn’t think of anything to say that wasn’t either super charged or totally generic chitchat, which seemed almost insulting. Conversation for strangers, and whatever Phoenix was, he wasn’t a stranger. So finally I asked what I wanted to know. “Can I ask you something?”

He nodded, chewing his burrito. “Sure. But make sure you’re prepared for the answer.”

That was a good point. But I still asked it anyway. I needed to know before I let myself fall any further. “Did you love Angel? Do you still love her?”

His eyebrows rose. It obviously was not a question he was anticipating. But then he smiled and shook his head. “No. I never loved her. She was interested in me. I figured why not? And I did care about her. But then for someone who claimed to want me so much, she couldn’t be bothered to visit me when I was in.”

“So you’re more angry than hurt?”

“Yeah, I guess. But I suppose I’m not even all that angry, because anger on me is a lot louder and messier than what you saw.”

It seemed like a warning. Or maybe I just took it that way. I didn’t have a lot of experience with anger. Passive-aggressive behavior? Sure. But not pure anger. “Well, I’m still sorry that she wasn’t an honest girlfriend to you.”

“It’s okay.” Phoenix leaned forward, closer to me. “Can I ask you a question now?”

“Sure. Just be prepared for the answer,” I parroted back to him, hoping he wouldn’t ask me anything I felt like I couldn’t answer.

“What’s his name?”

“Who?”

“The guy everyone thinks did this to you.”

“Did what?” I asked, heart starting to race. “No one did anything to me.”

“What those girls noticed.” He pulled his phone out of his pocket and starting swiping at it. “I am being honest, you look beautiful to me, but you do look different. What happened at that party where you blacked out?” he asked.

Then he showed me a picture of myself from early in the summer. I was drunk, yelling, plastic cup in the air. I was in full makeup, cleavage out, hair hot-rolled into waves. My lip curled before I could stop myself.

“No one did anything to me. That is the truth. And even if they did, why would you want his name?”

“So I can beat the shit out of him.”

I tore my eyes off his phone screen to stare at him. He sounded serious. He looked serious. Tightly wound, the caged tiger, ready to attack the minute the gate was raised. “I don’t need you to do that, but even if I did, aren’t you on probation or something? And why were you in prison anyway?”

“For beating the shit out of someone.”

My jaw dropped. It made sense. I mean, if it wasn’t drugs or driving under the influence, what would it be? I didn’t think he was the kind for stealing. It just didn’t match the behavior I had seen. But fighting? It wasn’t that hard to picture. A five-month sentence seemed harsh for assault, though it wasn’t like I really had any clue about sentencing and the justice system. Maybe I had been avoiding asking because while I wanted to respect his privacy I also just didn’t want to have to face the fact that Phoenix had done something wrong. I wanted to hold onto the belief that like Tyler, he had been wrongfully imprisoned in some way, despite what Tyler himself had hinted at.

My pause where I processed that information grew too long, and he gave a sound of exasperation.

“Don’t worry, I only beat the shit out of people who deserve it.”

“Who deserved it?” I asked in a quiet voice, wondering if anyone ever truly deserved it.

“My mom’s piece-of-shit boyfriend, who just happens to be a drug dealer. Some of his inventory went missing and he decided my mother took it. I caught him with a knife, carving up her stomach while he . . .”

I was horrified, and my face must have reflected that.

Phoenix cut his words off, shaking his head. His lips were pursed. “Never mind. But he deserved it for that and for all the times he hit her before that. And I’m not even sorry for it. I’d do it again if the circumstances were the same.”

I saw that he meant it. All for a woman who hadn’t bothered to tell him where she was moving while he was in prison for defending her. So I just nodded, because I had no idea what to say. I didn’t understand that world and I didn’t know what it would feel like to watch your mother being abused or how instinctive it would be to use violence to stop violence. I did think that it was the right thing to do to stop someone hurting another person, that in a situation where nothing was right, it was more wrong to walk away and pretend it wasn’t happening.

A knife carving up her stomach. Good God.

Phoenix pushed his tray away. “I should probably just go.”

“Why?” That upset me. I didn’t want him to walk away with anything awkward between us. I wasn’t even sure how I felt, but I knew I didn’t have any right to judge something I didn’t know anything about.

“Because . . .” He looked away and shook his head.

“Why?” I repeated, both of our lunches totally abandoned.

“Because I like you.” Phoenix turned back and met my gaze. “And I won’t be good for you.”

My throat tightened. “I think maybe you think I’m a better person than I am.”

But Phoenix shifted his chair closer to me so we were sitting next to each other, and he took my hand. “Robin.”

“Yes?”

“I’m no good for you. And you’re probably no good for me. But we’re going to do this anyway, aren’t we?”

I nodded, because looking into his dark eyes there wasn’t any other answer. I couldn’t walk away from him, and I couldn’t let him walk away from me. “Yes. We are.”

“I thought so,” he murmured, and he kissed me in the food court, a quick brush of his lips over mine.

My skin tingled, and I sighed.

Oh yeah, we were definitely going to do this.

It was the only thing I’d been sure of all summer.

When the truth was that an ordinary life with an ordinary family hadn’t just made me ordinary, it had made me naive. Because in that moment, I genuinely thought that Phoenix’s background, his anger, my secret, didn’t matter at all.

It did.

The very minute I knew I was done for? When Robin asked me if I loved Angel. Because when a girl asks that, she wants to know if there is room in your heart for her. I knew that not only was there room for Robin, she could probably work her way through it until she was in every single crevice, spreading like octopus ink across the ocean floor. I got in to octopuses in fourth grade, checking out every book I could at the library about them and featuring them in all my reports and art projects. The teacher wrote a note to my mother about my obsessive behavior, which I never gave her. But I remember thinking, what is so wrong with digging octopus? They have eight legs and suckers and spew ink, is it any wonder I was fascinated?

But there is a fine line our world dictates between an appropriate and healthy interest in something and obsession. If you express too little interest in anything in particular, you’re lazy, a slacker, lacking in hobbies and liable to fall in with the wrong crowd. If you show too much interest, then clearly you’re obsessive-compulsive, unnatural.

I had already been fixating on Robin, I knew that. But when she made it clear that she was interested in having me fall in love with her, or that she wanted to know if the possibility was there, I knew that I had moved into octopus territory. I wanted to know everything there was to know about her—I wanted to see her all the time, touch her, smell her, unlock the mysteries of her body.

There would be disapproval from somewhere—maybe everywhere—but I didn’t give a shit.

I walked her to her class after she mostly didn’t eat her lunch, holding her hand, which felt small and delicate in mine, ignoring everyone who glanced at us. “So what are you studying?” I asked her. “Art?”

“No. Art isn’t practical. Graphic design. It’s a way to be sort of creative and actually make a living.”

“That makes sense.” Still, I had a hard time picturing her in an office or whatever. I thought of her head bent over the kitchen table or her sketching in the park. That was when she seemed happy. “Did you ever wonder why you were born with a talent if you can’t fully use it? I mean, we can’t all be Michelangelo painting the Sistine Chapel, so why are we born with this burn to draw?”